Talk:Riley Stavros/@comment-3541172-20110820060300/@comment-3575890-20110824191119
^^ Once again Squall, you present a good argument, but there are a few things I'd like to comment on. 1. It's not crucial to come out in high school, but I do think it has it's points. IMO Riley's senior year is probably the ideal time for him to come out as senior year is all about coming into your own, discovering who you are and preparing for the future. You know how they say better now than never, right? I think that may apply in this case. The longer you wait to do something, the harder it is to do it and the more time that passes by, the more you lose your nerve. Given Riley was out of the closet before and the student body was generally accepting, why would it be so bad for him now? Yes, there's the ordeal of having to deal with his parents for the next two months, but let's look at it from another angle; a lot can happen in two months. Every parent with a gay child, no matter how unreasonable and closeminded, has to eventually accept that aspect about them. It's practically an established parental law that if you love your child, you have to accept him/her for who they are no matter your own stance on it. Marco's dad was a homophobe, but he eventually came around and accepted his son. Mrs. Torres was dead set against accepting Adam as her son, but she eventually did. So the question is, why is it so bad for Riley to come out to his parents after he's already moved out as opposed to now while he's still under their care? Well, it's not necessarily. But I think the longer RIley would hold off on telling his parents the truth, especially after moving out, the bigger the inevitable rift. The reason I say this is because once you've moved out and are on bad terms with your family, the chances of salvaging that relationship are a lot slimmer. You start to see less and less of them until you lose contact completely. Family means everything to Riley. That's why he's back in the closet to begin with. If he wishes to salvage his relationship with his parents, it's better to rip the bandage off now than wait IMO. The longer he holds off on coming out to them for real, the harder the aftermath is going to be for him. Now I do understand that after he came out to his mother the first time, she shunned him and treated him like total shit (and don't get me wrong, it's unacceptable) but what difference does it make whether he does that now or later? Their reactions will still be the same. But timing. timing can make a difference. If Riley were to come out sooner than too late, his parents might be able to come around before he moves out. Two months may not seem that long in theory, but in this context, substantial progress could be made in that span of time. 4. But see, getting punched didn't teach Owen a lesson anymore than his suspension did. If anything, it made him more aggressive. You fight fire with fire, and you (or in this case, someone close to you) gets burned. Honestly, I don't think there is any way to truly reason with homophobes. You can't get through to them with your fists and no matter how you argue with them until you're blue in the face, you can't get through to them with words either. They're unbudgeable and completely set in their backwards line of thinking. Most of the time, this] has a lot to do with upbringing, in which case once that attitude is drilled into their heads from childhood, there is no changing their minds. 8. Like ShadowBeauty said, I think Zane was more so upset with Riley for lying to him than the actual backtracking. If Riley had been honest with him from the start, I think Zane would have been a lot more understanding. As such, I think what hurt Zane the most was Riley's act of regression in backing into the closet after he was already out. I empathize so much with Riley, but I also sympathize with Zane in how he must have felt thinking he and his boyfriend could finally go public with their relationship, only for all of that progress to go to waste. After they finally reached that point in their relationship where they could just be a couple without all of the sneaking around, restrictions and secrets, it must have been difficult for Zane to adapt back to that level of restriction their relationship was at before. And then, to uphold a falsefied illusion, Riley gets himself a faux girlfriend to convince his parents he's straight (when he's not) and he's pretty much back at square one. In Zane's position, I myself would be pretty upset by my boyfriend regressing to this magnitude too. Not just because of the damper this puts on the relationship, but also on Riley. Now keeping their relationship a secret for a few months may not seem like a big deal, but to Zane it is. Throughout their run as a couple you could see it clearly hurt Zane that he couldn't be openly affectionate with Riley. He felt like some dirty secret and that in itself can't be good for Zane's self esteem either. It's not that I don't understand where Riley was coming from all of this time or where he's coming from now. However, the moment Riley came out last season, he set up a brand new reality for him and Zane of which there were no longer restrictions and inhibitions to hold back and weigh on them. Naturally, Zane had falsefied hope that Riley was out of the closet to stay. Of course he was disappointed when it didn't come to be. It's like obtaining something you've waited so patiently for and then the moment you think it can't be taken away from you, it is snatched from your grasp. Yes, it's not Riley's fault that he isn't ready after all. People move at their own steady pace. But it was a mistake on Riley's part to have come out in the first place. If he isn't ready for what that entails now, then he just as well wasn't ready before. I agree that Zane did play an influencial role in Riley's decision to come out, but I do think Riley truly believed he was ready at the time too. He never gave into Zane before. Why would he have then if he wasn't ready? He did it on his own terms, but he misjudged the degree of which he was ready. 9. I agree that relationships are all about compromise. That said, how can a gay couple meet each other halfway when what they want are two very different things that don't in any way coincide with each other? Zane wants Riley to tell his parents about him and Riley isn't ready. There's no possible compromise.